"What I've found out with people inside Liverpool, they won't sell him.

"It's not going to happen. Klopp would do the business, but the owners won't get involved."

Reds legend John Aldridge reckons his old club have a near impossible task trying to find a replacement for Coutinho.

He said: “This is a nightmare for Liverpool, with the timing of his transfer request could not have been worse, coming 24 hours before the start of the new season and we just don’t know where this story is going now.

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Craig Bellamy thinks Philippe Coutinho will stay at Liverpool

“I would urge the Liverpool owners to stand firm, refuse to sell Coutinho to Barcelona for any price and try and ride out the storm until the transfer window shuts.

“That won’t be easy to do because the player has clearly decided he wants to go and while I can understand the appeal of a move to Barcelona and sympathise with his desire to make it happen, his departure would leave Liverpool in a desperate position.

“Even if they get £100m for Coutinho, getting players in with less than three weeks of the transfer window to go will be difficult and maybe even impossible.”